April 6, 2012:
The military has warned Hamas and Hezbollah that they, and their senior leaders, will be targets if either organization attacks Israel. Hamas has refrained from such attacks, but Israel suspects Hamas is behind recent rocket attacks from Egyptian Sinai on the Israeli city of Eilat (at the northern end of the Red Sea). The new Egyptian government has reduced security on its Gaza border, allowing Islamic terror groups to freely travel to Sinai with rockets and other weapons. This is in violation of the three decade old peace treaty that returned Sinai to Egyptian control. Israel threatens to put security patrols over and into Sinai if Egypt does not keep the terrorists out. The new elections in Egypt have put lots of Islamic parties into parliament and an Islamic radical might be elected president in May. Because of decades of pretty nasty anti-Israel propaganda, Egyptian public opinion supports anyone who calls for attacks on Israel. Although the military is against this (they, unlike anti-Israel pundits, know that Israel is still a much stronger military power), government officials are under popular pressure to support Islamic terrorist groups attacking Israel.

The U.S. has agreed to help pay for another ten batteries of the Iron Dome anti-rocket system. Although Iron Dome stops most rockets aimed at Israeli residential areas, about ten percent of these rockets still get through.

Palestinians are their own worst enemies and now decades of internal (hidden from the West) "Israel must be destroyed" propaganda and bad-faith peace negotiations have turned the foreign aid donor community against them. This includes many Moslem donors. The donor states have become aware of the continuing internal Palestinian propaganda and Palestinian refusal to consider anything but an "Israel must be destroyed" solution. Add to this corruption and mismanagement among Palestinian leaders and you have a crisis that gets little publicity. That's because anti-Israel headlines are more popular, in the West as well as in Islamic countries. Moreover, it's become fashionable in the West for leftist political groups to blame Israel for all Palestinian problems, and this further hides Palestinian intransigence and perfidy from public consciousness. But the reality is that few of the major donor states want to waste money on Palestinians any more, not when there are more worthy causes all over the world.

In Gaza Hamas has become more aggressive in attacking opponents (especially members of Fatah, which controls the West Bank). Hamas is under pressure from more radical groups but does not want to go to war with Israel again because Hamas has a lot more targets for the Israelis to go after.

Israeli Arabs, especially teenagers and young men, are increasingly violent against their non-Moslem neighbors. A lot of this is caused by the Palestinian anti-Israel TV and radio propaganda, which can be picked up inside Israel.

April 5, 2012: A rocket landed on the outskirts of Eilat, near the border with Jordan. Attacks like this are rare, the last one took place two years ago.

April 2, 2012: An Israeli patrol killed a man trying to plant explosives at the Gaza border (in order to attack Israeli patrols).

March 31, 2012: An Israeli patrol killed a man trying to cross the Gaza border.

March 30, 2012: The annual Palestinian "Land Day" demonstrations and riots left one dead and over 50 wounded.

March 24, 2012: Interpol has issued arrest warrants for four Iranians believed involved in a recent terrorist operation in India, that attempted to kill Israeli diplomats.

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